The Measure of A Lifetime
by Sable Supernova
Summary: The Greek Fates gave life, measured its length and took life away. Cedrella Weasley, born to the Black family, knew more than most how precious that time was. Oneshot.


A/N: Sometimes, the Fates are depicted as three old hags, sometimes as three beautiful young things and sometimes as three sisters representing the three stages of life. I went with the third option, finding it the most poetic.  
Written for Myths and Legends Assignment 2 Extra Credit: Involve the three Fates in your story, using the tools of their trade.  
Also written for 200 Characters in 200 Days – Cedrella Weasley.  
742 words.

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 **The Measure of a Lifetime**

 _A girl sat on a stool in front of a spindle, humming softly to herself as she worked. Her hair fell in long, blonde ringlets; her cheeks were flushed with youth. The blue of her eyes spoke of summer skies. To her left, a never ending pile of golden wool, yet to be spun. To her right, the fine, perfect thread continued on, intricate and fine, perfect as if her hands worked with the experience of a thousand lifetimes. A thread is begun afresh and a whole new world set in motion._

.o0o.

The muggles are at war, but in this small room in a large terraced house, the war is a million miles away. A woman lies flushed and breathless against the mattress, coiled in bedsheets that writhed around her throughout her ordeal. She smiles with blood red lips as she hears her newborn cry for the first time.

A bundle is placed in her lap. "It's a girl," she's told, as she looks down into the new blue of a baby's eyes. Her baby.

It isn't long before her daughter is by her side, trying to climb into the bed beside her mother and look down on her sister for the first time. Her husband is stood by the bed, proud and respectful but smiling, unable to contain his happiness.

"Callidora, darling, come and see your new sister," Lysandra tells her daughter with dark curls bobbing around her head as the nursemaid helps her up beside her mother.

"Beautiful!" the two year old announces, staring in wide-eyed childish wonder. Lysandra smiles.

"What shall we name her?" Lysandra asks, knowing Callidora already had a name picked out, and it was one Lysandra and her husband approved of.

"Cedrella. The nurse Susan said it means love," the two year old told them, very adamantly.

Lysandra smiled at her husband. "Cedrella it is," Arturus agreed.

.o0o.

 _An ample, motherly figure with dark hair, pulled back in a Grecian bun sighed as she wrapped the golden thread around her measuring rod, counting out the days and hours and minutes this life would need to accomplish all it had to do. She wished she could tell the mortals below that the length of time they had was not what mattered – rather, what they did with it was important._

 _For this life, she saw troubles ahead. A childhood of devotion would lead to rebellion. A marriage of love would spawn so much hate. A lonely life, full of leaving. Three sons would ease its burden._

 _This would be a woman with a lot to do. This was a woman born understanding the importance of time and its limits. Lachesis double checked her measurements and passed the thread on to her eldest and shrewdest of sisters._

.o0o.

Cedrella's hair had grown long and dark once, but now it sprouted like silver wire from her skull. Her skin, once plump and soft, was dry, worn leather, full of creases, thin with age. She looked at the veins where they stood prominent on the back of her hand and thought of the countless other hands that hand had shook, or held tightly.

Beside her were her family, crammed into matching chairs in the small visiting room at St. Mungo's. They all knew why they were there, but no one said it. Her three sons, each a little bit of their late father, wore matching grave expressions. Nobody liked goodbyes.

Instead of watching them, she turned her eyes to the two boys playing with the broken hospital toys at the foot of her bed. They didn't understand this was goodbye, they were too young. Charlie laughed at something Bill had said, and Cedrella smiled.

If she was to go today, at least she was leaving more than a memory behind. She was more than a hole on an ancient tapestry. She'd been happy.

.o0o.

 _An old, wizened woman held shears in arthritic fingers, knobbly and crooked. Her face was mostly worn away by time, leaving little but loose, grey skin over bone and sinew. Her eyes were scrunched as if to focus, surrounded by dark rings. She wheezed and coughed before taking the thread, looking for the point at which one life ended and another began. It was around here somewhere – she could feel it. She was close._

 _She found the spot and, slowly, with old, tired joints, brought the shears to the thread with a careful, precise movement. Cut._


End file.
